Interesting Facts

To help support his family, Chavez quit school in the seventh grade to become a full-time migrant farm worker.

Served two years in the U.S. Navy during WWII, while on leave in Delano, California, he chose to sit in the White section of a movie theatre and was arrested and put in jail.

He married Helen Fabela and the couple had eight children.

Farm workers activism:

Practicied non-violence : fasting, boycotts, marches

He fasted for a life-threatening thirty-six days in mid-1988 to augment his antipesticide protest.

Co-founder of the national farm workers assocaition (NFWA) later merginfg with American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFl-CIO) and ultimately becoming the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

Lead a 5 year strike by California grape pickers, boycotting California grapes nationwide.